Reminds me of an old scifi story. Someone in a far future or advanced alien society runs across a paper book. "A means of conveying information without needing power and without the risk of surveillance? Excellent!" (paraphrased from memory).
There was also that (Asimov? Clarke?) story about a space ship which has its computer knocked out by a meteoroid and can't navigate back to Earth until someone on-board turns out to know how to use an abacus.
"The Feeling of Power" by Isaac Asimov also has a similar premise. It seems that the idea of forgetting basic mathematics due to computers was quite popular in science fiction at that time.
There a great Asimov story on these lines. Its called 'The fun they had'. Highly recommended. I read it aeons ago as a kid, and its stuck with me ever since.
Captain is handed a manual when plant life is discovered. Took him a second to stop talking to the book and start using his hands on the pages. It was a pretty quick scene, but humorous.
Side note, the Wall-E short is great and one of the best Pixar shorts, imo.
I've noticed this with mature technology. There comes a point where a product is perfect, no need to add anymore features. But the manufacturer still wants to continue adding new features so that they can use those as new selling points. Unfortunately the new features end up making the product worse.
Lack of world voltage is probably deliberate. Braun/Oral-B toothbrushes are usually cheaper in the US than in other countries (e.g. the UK) that use 220/240V. The UK-bought toothbrushes will work fine in the US.
I've had one US-bought base unit fail and, given the simplicity of the device (just coils for transforming voltage and induction charging) I'm assuming it's due to being plugged in to a 220V outlet for an extended period.
Nobody's happy with keeping things how they are anymore, unfortunately. Got to keep moving fast and keep breaking things, no matter how well they worked. Not introducing new features feels like stagnation to investors and shareholders.
You can already see that manufacturers have a hard time to come up with new features. Stuff like thinner devices (nobody cares or wants this to a certain degree, compared to a better battery life), 3+ cameras, notches because for some reason you can't integrate speakers behind the display. "AI" stuff that doesn't work when you're offline.
I would trade all this shit for a week battery time.
So yes, while smartphones are not perfect, I see no intentions from developers to fix that.
The problem with prolonging long battery life, is that most people don’t care.
They are told what to buy from flashy ads and multimillion marketing budgets. Keeping the battery week keeps you tethered to your desk and requires you to think about every night b for bend)did I plug in my phone?)
Low battery drives usage. If you had a large weeklong battery, you might put your phone down every now and again without looking at it... a big no no for big tech.
The reason we don't have week long battery life is because it is difficult to do, not to keep eyes on screens. Most companies are actively working on longer battery life.
>nobody cares or wants this to a certain degree, compared to a better battery life
Then why do consumers constantly praise thinner phones, and continue to purchase them? I think you're mistaking what you want and consider a good choice compared to what everyone else actually wants and is willing to support.
Do they? I inhabit a very different bubble then as I've only heard complaints amongst my friends and workmates lately. Even formerly enthusiastic ones.
It reminds me of the 80s ghetto blasters fad. Size was the thing. As they got ever bigger they got far worse as there was so much resonant empty plastic and they distorted and rattled madly with volume anywhere over 2. Size and LEDs counted above all. Sound? LOL look at these LEDs man.
Most recent changes, from all manufacturers, have been deliberately consumer hostile. There's not much left to actually innovate with. Consumers don't want to keep swapping ecosystems - as that means hassle and re-buying a bunch of apps. Often they'd prefer not to even switch manufacturers if they've ended up using a cloud app for photos or something. So they just buy the next iThing from whoever even if it is too big, or is anti case because of edge to edge screens, or has a fake notch.
Talk about Emperor's new clothes.
So what can I choose that's against this trend? Oh. Nothing. Yet I need a phone, and probably an app or two for work. Best buy something or risk job loss. Even if I detest all the offerings as too big for any pocket I possess.
In your eyes it's a vote for thinner or bigger because a sale was made. No that's not how it works. It's not a simple commodity with only one feature to make, break, and validate the sale. To vote by not purchasing I'd have to cease having a mobile.
My current SE fits my biking gear pockets without fiddling, my previous Android was a bit fiddly. The one before that (my one attempt at a larger phone) fit properly in nothing I own except my winter coats. It had to live in my rucksack, so got left at home a lot, and on the desk through lunch breaks. No surprise that it wasn't many months before I Ebayed it and bought something sensible. :p
Anything bigger than the SE would sometimes fall out of my spring/autumn weight jackets if I just bent over or sat. All except SE got too big for comfort in back pocket of jeans any more. Especially as they get so thin and large as to be asking for a bent or broken phone.
I don't think that's so unusual? It's my other half who's pocket limited. :)
Because there is no alternative. It's not legit to say "people like thin smartphones more" when you are only making thin ones. Same for the headphone jack.
I think what we're seeing here is that companies optimise for the store shelf rather than for actual use. A thinner, bigger phone looks much more appealing in the store, which is where customers make the purchase decision. The disadvantages of that design (comparatively short battery life, does not fit into the pockets of my favorite pants) are only noticed later when the purchase has already been made.
The purchasing of the new best thing can also be the case, take for example that there hasn't been a flagship phone that actually fits in most peoples single hand since the SE and yet I know lots of people that will just "buy the next Iphone" because thats what they have done for 5 years with no consideration for ergonomics.
The notch is for the camera and face scanner. Nothing to do with speakers. Ditching the front facing camera might get you half an hour or so battery life I suppose.
It does and they do take advantage of the notch with the speaker (why wouldn't they?), but that's not the reason for the notch to exist.
Apple discussed this in interviews after the X came out. They realized they needed somewhere for the camera and face scanner, so decided since they needed a notch anyway they would take full advantage by adding in those sensors and features that could make best use of it. The proximity sensor and speakers could have worked without a notch, but work better with it. These considerations, together with aesthetics related to balancing the size of the notch and the screen areas either side, were the driving factors.
POTS (plain old telephone service) is really amazing in many ways. Huge reliability, independent of the ordinary power grid, dead simple consistent UI, etc.
(I have an IP phone at work, and it's an unintuitive unreliable beast.)
Right. It’s no big deal for anyone if there’s no mobile signal but no dial tone is shocking. Even when there’s a power cut the landlines still work. I have probably only experienced an outage of POTS a couple of times in my life.
Nitpick: typically they have excellent reception. _However,_ with many copper lines not being maintained and especially in some rural areas, reception can be awful to unusable.
And it works most of the time, even if the power goes down, there are storms or floods, as long as the wired connection is not down. When NYC lost power in the early oughties, guess which phones were still working? Yep, the pay phones and the landlines. Most of the cell phones were dying or dead. That said, I don't have one but my parents still do.
Replacing the 3.5mm headphone jack with USB-C or Bluetooth, even when some devices seemingly have space to accommodate them easily. I hate progress for progress sakes.
And audio quality on most Bluetooth headphone/earphones sucks. And now I have to carry a zillion dongles for everything.
Removing the headphone jack was a ballsy move, and Apple certainly knew it would irritate many.
But wireless headsets is arguably much better (at least Apple thinks so). So kudos to Apple for having going out on a limb to support something they really believe un.
Progress is sometimes a regress in disguise.